


All The Broken Things You Inherit

by Calliope_Soars



Series: In His Absence [2]
Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Mention of Physical Abuse, One Shot, Tiny Mention of Mindy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1830346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calliope_Soars/pseuds/Calliope_Soars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atonement is not easy to come by, nor is forgiveness for that matter.</p><p>(Follow-up to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1361683"><b>The Reckless Man and the Primo Ballerino</b></a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Broken Things You Inherit

**Author's Note:**

> I started this on Father's Day because I'm an odd duck. I have perpetual Danny feels and am still bitter that the show breezed past the Alan/Danny reunion. 
> 
> Unbeta'ed cause I am feeling rebellious, hence all mistakes are mine.
> 
>    
>  **Music:** _A Boy Named Sue_ – Johnny Cash  
>  _Life I Used To Live_ – Lightnin’ Hopkins  
>  _My Father’s House_ – Bruce Springsteen  
>  _The Man Comes Around_ – Johnny Cash

 

Atonement is not easy to come by, nor is forgiveness for that matter.

  
Still, none of this crossed Danny’s mind when he was tricking Mindy into driving to the desert. Nor was it a consideration when his blood simmered in his veins and his fingers curled up and clenched into a tight fist. He’d spat at her to stay in the car, to let him handle his business, fully prepared to hurt the man who had been the first to truly wreck him. He had been certain that he would relish it, as it was something he’d imagined for decades now.

  
Danny hadn’t stopped to think that perhaps there was a limit to how much pain could be heaped on top of their lives. He had his mind set to break his dad’s jaw, to break this man in any way that he could. He hadn’t thought that the universe would be indifferent about justice, the score he had to settle or this rage buzzing so hard inside of him that it literally made his skin itch. He hadn’t considered that perhaps his father had simply made a mistake. Yes of course it had been a horribly thoughtless one, but probably not something he had done out of malice. Maybe it had to stop now, this tidal wave of hurt wrought by his father’s selfishness. One of them had to stop making fists, stop breaking things and try to fix them instead. Simply put, one of them had to be a man.

  
Except for once, Daniel Castellano wanted to revel in pettiness. It was his turn after all, his turn to get what he was owed and watch his old man get a taste of what it felt like to be sucker punched. Mindy’s presence had definitely made things more difficult, but the appearance of a surprise sibling had managed to make everything impossible. And yet there it was, that itch, that rage that clawed at him and wouldn’t release him. Danny had spit venom at the older man, his anger morphing into sorrow and then back to rage again in the span of seconds. How did one behave like a man, when there had never been an example for him to follow?

  
So he drank… **a lot**. He drank until his limbs felt like they belonged to someone else and his feet carried him off into the desert so he could fall apart in private. Mindy had left him to stew in his family drama and now he was lost as well as broken. Nothing had changed, since Danny’s humiliation was never-ending when it came to his father. He should have never listened to Richie; he should’ve never leaped before looking, because now here he was face down in the dirt with no one to help him up.

  
His father’s mention of his dancing days touched a part of Danny that he thought he’d hidden so deep he’d all but forgotten about it. He wanted to dismiss it, refuse to participate in this shared memory and pretend he didn’t know what Alan was talking about. Except his heart was a traitorous coward and it clenched with a want that made Danny feel ashamed. Alan had called him graceful and all of a sudden he felt deflated, overcome by the sensation that perhaps he had been overreacting all along. Doubt seeped into his pores and his voice rose with a pathetic hopeful note, as the little boy inside of him was desperate for Alan to continue to say kind things to him. Danny felt the fight slowly leave him, felt it die out with a whimper.

  
Danny stayed silent on the drive from the military base back to his father’s house, thankful for Mindy’s ability to fill every space with easy conversation. He’d opted to sit in the back and for some reason he couldn’t help rubbing his hands together and think of how comfortable they had felt curled up into fists. Maybe he didn’t know how to behave around this man who had the power to enrage him so. His mind spun unpleasantly and made him wish he had one more beer to keep away these buzzing thoughts.

  
As if she could sense the shift in the air, Mindy excused herself and quietly followed Alan’s directions to the guestroom. Unsure and awkward, both men stood at opposite sides of the small dining room table and eyed the other warily.

  
“I want to tell you a story.” Alan gripped the back of a chair, looking pale and anxious, like the words had cut him up on their way out. “I’d…I would like to…” he paused as sweat began to form at his hairline, then abruptly took a seat before meeting Danny’s gaze again. “Let me tell you this story. Please, Daniel.”

  
Danny was anything but graceful as he took a seat, unsure what to do with his limbs and just couldn’t find a way to settle. Alan was too immersed in his thoughts to notice, as he was probably trying to find the right sequence of words to absolve him of everything he had done wrong.

  
“You never knew your grandfather,” Alan ran both hands through his hair to conceal the tremor there. “If I’m honest, neither did I. Not really.”

  
Danny shook his head out of instinct, refusing to sympathise with this man. Just because he felt too feeble for anger right now did not mean that he would give him anything else. He dug his fingernails into the outer seam of his jeans until he thought he might make himself bleed.  
  
  
Danny took a deep breath through his nose, “Your dad was a sonafabitch, and so you turned into one too.” His voice shook pitifully so he focused on the throbbing in his fingertips. “This isn’t news to me,” he said flatly, cramming down any further weakness that tried to reveal itself.

  
“You’re right, it’s no excuse but I want you to understand, Danny. I didn’t want to end up like him.”  
  
  
“Newsflash, you did!”  
  
  
Danny was done with this conversation and made a move to stand. His father clutched his forearm desperately, pleaded for him to hear him out. He was awkward at this, at begging…apologising…atoning. It was painful to watch, but then again, who said this trip was going to be easy. It stopped being easy the moment he had uncurled his fist. That second he had let his anger slip away and leave him flopping about like a fool without a plan.

  
“Guiseppe, he was…” Alan’s eyes were brimming with tears and Danny could feel his stare on him. “I know I wasn’t a good man, but god you gotta know – he broke us. He beat us so often, so goddamn much, that we became dull to it. You can’t imagine how many blows it takes for you to convince yourself you deserved them. It has a way of infecting you, that kind of rage. And then,” Alan’s voice cracked and the sound seemed to fully envelop the small space.

  
With Alan’s words still hanging in the air around them, Danny took in his father’s faraway gaze. It was clear Alan was stuck somewhere in a dark painful past that he’d undoubtedly never spoken of before. Danny had never seen him look so old and fragile, and unlike what he would’ve thought earlier, the sight brought him no pleasure. It was astonishing really, to see how different this version of Alan Castellano was. The man Danny had known in his youth was unreadable and withdrawn, never one to show his discomfort so openly as he was doing now.

  
“I wasn’t a good father,” Alan paused, perhaps to hear his son scoff – but nothing came. “I was never taught how to be one, ya know. I was broken and in my day…well you just didn’t broadcast that.” The older Castellano nodded at his son, acting like they shared the same history, shared these same restrictions that bound a man’s emotions into a painfully tight ball that sat like cement at the pit of his stomach. Danny gave him a blank look in return, causing Alan to press his lips tightly together for a beat.

  
“Basically, if you were a man, you kept your shit together.”

  
“Except you didn’t.” Danny didn’t mean it to come out as harsh as it had. It wasn’t to be cruel. He didn’t mean to poke at his wounds like that, but merely wanted to show that he had injuries of his own to worry about. Danny watched his old man shrink into himself and shake his head. Alan looked plagued with memories long buried and Danny wished he hadn’t interrupted. Bitterness really was a hard habit to break.

  
“No, no, you’re right.” Alan nodded adamantly, although his pained expression just would not leave him, “I thought I was saving you all from what was in my blood. I didn't want to be as bad as him. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But I guess – I guess that doesn’t mean I didn’t screw up anyway.”   
A flush crept along the old man’s cheeks, making Danny think he might have heard how futile his words really were in hindsight. Perhaps he was finally understanding how misguided his actions had been.

  
“I don’t know what you want from me.”

  
It felt scary to admit it, that he felt unsteady due to all of this. Danny felt his blood roar in his ears, his calm was brittle and he could not handle the waves of self-pity coming off of Alan. “Like you said, you can’t change the past. Isn’t that right, Dad?” The words left a nasty taste in Danny’s mouth.

  
“Yes, yes of course. But I can apologise for it, right? I mean I can – I can try and explain. Danny, I was a coward and I shouldn’t have –”

  
“You shouldn’t have done a lot of things. You shouldn’t have checked out, before you actually left.” Danny’s mouth morphed itself into a sneer.

  
“It made it worse, ‘cause all of us tried so hard to keep you and you’d just sit there and act like we were air. You shouldn’t have treated Ma the way you did. Or Richie.” He purposefully left out himself, because what was the use anyway. “You shouldn’t have started a new family and named your new goddamn kid after me, as if you could get a do-over. We weren’t a mistake, you know. We were your family and you just erased us from your mind. So yeah Alan, you fucking did a lot of things that you really shouldn’t have done!”

  
To his frustration, Danny’s voice ended up sounding more frail than angry, making him wish he still had some of that heat to shield him from this whole mess. He didn’t need this man to know how much he had questioned his own worth due to his absence. For a very long period, he had thought that maybe if he had been a football player instead of a dancer, perhaps then his father wouldn’t have left. Danny had stopped dancing then.  Danny remembered his mother had been very upset and kept reminding him how he loved to dance, that he was born to do it. He’d just shrugged then and offered no explanation. He couldn’t very well tell her that primo ballerinos were losers who got left behind by their fathers. He never told her of his plans to become something greater, something memorable and essential and worth sticking around for.

  
Alan just nodded hesitantly; ready for whatever Danny had to say. He looked like a man who had been waiting for the axe to drop for an eternity and was just so fucking relieved the wait was finally over now. Except Danny didn’t know how to maintain this, how to get out from under the debris of their fucked up non-relationship. He didn’t know how to be done with this man, since everything Alan Castellano had done in his life had shaped him as well. He didn’t want to be the axe in this pathetic scenario. He was exhausted and done dealing with this all-consuming bitterness and rage that had made him so hard to love.

  
“You messed me up, okay.” He wanted to rage at his father, but his voice wouldn’t comply. “And now you’ve changed.” It was an accusation. “Why do **you** get to change? How does that make any sense? Why do you get to be better and I’m still messed up?”

  
Danny didn’t know when he had started crying. He grimaced when Alan rounded the table to place a hand on his shoulder. He hated himself for leaning into it, even more so for letting his father hug him. This only made him sob harder and hug the bastard back.

  
“It just takes a step, Danny. I want to make this up to you, if you let me.”

  
Danny pushed himself out of his father’s embrace and wiped angrily at his eyes. The air was thick with tension, which caused Alan to retreat back to his seat.

  
“I can’t promise anything.” Danny sounded as raw as he felt.  
  
  
Alan nodded gravely at his son’s words.

  
“I can try though.”

  
The two men smiled at this; cautious and weary, but maybe a little hopeful too.

 


End file.
